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Sweet Home High School

Sweet Home High School. 2014-2015 ESL Proposal. ESL Population Trends. 2013-2014 ESL Population. B= Beginner I= Intermediate A= Advanced. 2013-2014 Sections and Students. Challenges and limitations of our current ESL program.

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Sweet Home High School

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  1. Sweet HomeHigh School 2014-2015 ESL Proposal

  2. ESL Population Trends

  3. 2013-2014 ESL Population B= Beginner I= Intermediate A= Advanced

  4. 2013-2014 Sections and Students

  5. Challenges and limitations of our current ESL program • Offering only three sections poses significant limitations. Due to regulations, ESL students with beginning English proficiency require three ESL courses and students with intermediate English proficiency require two ESL courses. Therefore, in our Advanced section, all three levels are present. Not only does this make for a large section, the needs of the students are diverse and there is only one instructor to meet those needs. • There is no room in the current schedule for the ESL teacher to assist students with other content areas and combine language instruction with academic vocabulary in content classes. • Our ESL instructor is teaching on an ‘island.’ There are few to no opportunities to collaborate with other teachers who work with ESL students. • Our language learners do not receive the benefit of learning with our broader student population with an added benefit of learning from more advanced levels of English proficiency. • Our ESL students are struggling to pass required Regents Examinations necessary for graduation, especially the English Comprehensive Exam.

  6. 2012-2013 ESL students Comprehensive English Exam Scores

  7. What does research tell us about our current model? • Unfortunately, what is taught in pull-out ESL classes is often unrelated to what is being taught in the students’ mainstream classes, which makes the pull-out model of ESL instruction the least effective program model for ELLs (Fu et al., 2007; Thomas & Collier, 1997; Thomas & Collier, 1999) • In addition, in pull-out ESL classes, especially at the secondary level, ELLs are often grouped by language proficiency level, and students who are in those classes are struggling readers and writers or students who have little English language proficiency (Honigsfeld & Dove, 2008). • In the study conducted by Thomas and Collier (1997), the pull-out ESL program referred to two-year long programs with a focus mainly on social language. Nevertheless, even with a broader focus of instruction in pull-out ESL classes, ELLs miss out on the content lessons when they are pulled out of their classrooms, because ESL and mainstream teachers usually do not have time to collaborate and coordinate their lessons (Mabbott & Strohl, 1992).

  8. What can co-teaching bring to our ESL program? • Many schools are making a shift from ESL pull-out to ESL – mainstream co-teaching because research suggests that co-teaching can be one of the most effective ways to meet the needs of the growing ESL population (Causton- Theoharis & Theoharis, 2008; Fu et al., 2007; Honigsfeld & Dove, 2008; Mabbott & Strohl, 1992; Young, 2006). • According to ESL researchers, ELLs acquire a second language faster and more effectively when academic language is taught at the same time as the mainstream content material (Dove & Honigsfeld, 2010; Short & Echevarria, 2004; Thomas & Collier, 1997). • Since mainstream teachers usually have limited training in second language acquisition and pedagogy, collaboration between ESL and mainstream teachers allows ELLs to not only learn both content and language, but also to develop socially and academically (Honigsfeld & Dove, 2008).

  9. How do we plan to use a full time ESL instructor at the high school?

  10. How do we plan to use a full time ESL instructor at the high school (continued)?

  11. How will these changes strengthen our ESL program?

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